Finding Focus

Multitalented artist returns to camera-centric roots

By Jessica Laskey
July 2025

Since we last spoke nine years ago, Jeff Myers has been busy.

“Tractor Levitation,” the outdoor sculpture he was working on in 2016, was unveiled at McKinley Village. He’s enjoyed several solo exhibitions, received good press and traveled.

Myers also added to his three series, “The Secret Life of Machines,” “The Land Series” and “Bodyen.”

His latest artistic exploration takes him back to his roots: cameras.

“I grew up around cameras, but I only did one camera painting before now,” Myers says. “It’s something that’s been gestating and manifesting in the background. It’s a deep emotional history—my mom died two years ago, my dad died before that, and I miss them.

“They were two incredible people. I loved them and their handmade way of life. It was hard to paint the first (camera), but now I’m off and running. It’s a way to connect with that photographic legacy.”

Myers’ parents were Fred and Sally Myers, Western photographers who worked with Ansel Adams. The couple ran a local stock photo business for decades, collecting about 700,000 images.

Jeff Myers followed the family’s creative footsteps. His photos have been published in National Geographic, The New York Times and National Wildlife. But painting and drawing were always his main avenues.

His body of work is varied, as expected from someone who grew up inspired by nature and machinery. His series “The Secret Life of Machines” brings historic machines, such as 1950s tractors, to life with complex collages—built of materials Myers created—embedded in the body and background of the object.

He went one step further in his “Bodyen” series. Myers takes bird’s eye images of “human environmental patterns,” such as highways and railway lines, from helicopters and airplanes. He projects them in a darkened studio onto a nude model.

Then he makes a print of the image and reintegrates it into a painting with layers of collage, which is “a long process, but fun and interesting,” he says.

Myers juxtaposes natural environments with the manmade—an aircraft carrier or mid-century modern interior with a redwood grove running through it.

“You may not see it when you first glance at the mother form—the tractor or the human body—but upon closer inspection and spending time with the work, these types of unusual contemporary environments bleed through,” he says. “I love reverse perspective.”

So do his fans. Myers has collectors across the country, for which he feels “very fortunate.”

In September, he’ll present a solo exhibition at John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis. The show focuses on “the machine and the body” as a continuation of his work incorporating endangered environments, along with his new camera series.

Myers’ work takes place in his Land Park studio—his childhood home. He remembers customers coming to pick up prints from his parents.

“This has been a photography and painting studio since 1972,” Myers says. “My wife and I have lived here since my parents passed on. It’s our creative temple.”

Myers will participate in Sac Open Studios sponsored by Verge Center for the Arts in September. For information, visit jeffmyersart.com.

Jessica Laskey can be reached at jessrlaskey@gmail.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @insidesacramento.